ABSTRACT
This chapter follows an ethnographic journey among indigenous Nenets Christian communities in the Russian Arctic from 2006 onward. It introduces local converts, visiting missionaries, and missionary guides, tracing the emergence and transformation of evangelical congregations amid social conflicts. Against an increasingly repressive political climate under Putin, it explores the challenges faced by religious minorities, including surveillance, discrimination, and public suspicion. Long-term ethnographic engagement shows how initial openness gave way to mistrust under real threats of persecution and state scrutiny of “sectarian” activity. Framed within anthropological debates on ethnographic knowledge production, the chapter presents fieldwork as a relational, co-constructed process. Ethnography emerges not as data collection but as a transformative encounter shaped by vulnerability, resilience, and mutual trust amid shifting political landscapes.
